Star behind the KOI model

Idea & star behind the KOI Model

There was a pond next to our studio which has been a source of inspiration of our KOI model. The pond has quite a number of Koi fish and it is really a joy just to watch them swimming around. We decided to design a KOI model after observing them for a number a days making sure the movment /automata mechanism are similar. We also need to be sure that we can design a paper model/sculpture that show the beauty of a KOI.

Designing a beautiful and realistic looking KOI paper model was the difficult part compare to the automata mechanism (but we prefer to have a real-looking model rather than a sketch model of a KOI). About 5 to 6 revision change on the paper model itself to achieve that.

We have been coming back to the pond several time to observe the head, body, tail, dimension ration, scale, color of the Koi. Thanks to this pond !

This is the pond and can you recognise the star behind our model?

This is one of the discarded earlier Koi paper model:

KOI

We have just completed a new automata model : KOI . It has been quite a while as we received feedback and suggestion to have a Koi Fish automata after we released our goldfish. We are fascinated by this very graceful fish that symbolish courage, wealth & prosperity in some countries. After observing this fish , we modified the existing goldfish to creat this KOI model. We have since made about 5 revision change in order to create a realistic anf beautiful KOI fish.

The earlier models either look too fat or not graceful enough.
We love this koi and we hope you like it too.

More images at our website www.ceracera.com

CeraCera NEW Models ....Almost ready.

We having been working on about 6 ~ 7 new models concurrently in the past few mths..... It has never been so fun before as all the new design /concept/ideas were floating in our minds all day long...... intoxicated with Automata Magic. Nevertheless, we sincerely hope our automata will make people happy .... especially during this financial crisis .








These are three of the models that were completed and undering final checking. We have re-designed the cover pages .


GoldFish - We re-design the popular GoldFish and is currently designing another one for Koi-lover (Koi model ).


KungFu Mei - "Mei" in Chinese mean young sister and we love this model. Turn the handle, the KungFu Mei will start practicing .

Dream Butterfly - This is the butterfly that appears in our dream. We completed this model quite some time back and finally done up the final version.

We will be publishing design notes of these models in the next few blog entries and hopefully adding some animation and pictures in the blog.

Happy New Year!

Happy Automata - Dream Butterfly part II

After doing some www search on butterfly, we have eventually found the one that we like and and the look alike of our dream butterfly.

The concept of the mechanism drawing was completed and prototype building started. Modified and redrawn the various pieces along the way, the photo show the 3rd revision of the draft and mock up. The star mark on the box is the location that we plan to have the flowers & leaves.

These 2 images give you the idea of the movement when the butterfly flapping her wings.

Some fine tuning needed to smoothen the movement and depict the graceful butterfly flap.

Summer break

Just realise the animation of the Aquashark did not work in the previous post. Thus, we post it here again and hope it works.





Looks like we might not be able to complete the Aquashar instruction on time before the planned summer holiday break. We will be away for 2 wks for holiday and probably continue our work after we are back. Hope to capture more automata ideas along the way.

Enjoy.

CeraCera - the Automata People
We simply love designing Automata and can never have enough of it!
We even dream Automata!

Dream Butterfly

In a hot summer afternoon last week, I dozed off while working on the instruction manual for the AquaShark ZZZ, zzz, ZZZ, zzz...... In a dreamy state, I saw a beautiful butterfly resting on a huge chrysanthemum. The butterfly was flapping her wings and I could feel the cool breeze in this hot afternoon. It was a blissful experience.

Butterfly is beautiful. Eureka!

We will love to have a butterfly Automata and this will be our next project. The challenge is on the mechanism because the wings are simply a thin sheet of paper and there is not room to house the mechanism. But we have figured out the concept and will probably put it into drawing shortly.
We love it and I think we will really enjoy designing this butterfly in the dream.

We call this model " DREAM BUTTERFLY ".

Do you love Butterfly?
Do you love Paper Automata?
Then you will love a Butterfly Automata.



CeraCera - the Automata People
We simply love designing Automata and can never have enough of it!
We even dream Automata!

AquaShark is coming!

Final adjustment done and we have just finished the animation of the aquashark model. Show here for yore review and hope you like it. Turn the handle , see the shark swimming in the ocean looking for its food. Shark !Shark!